President and CEO, PNC Capital Markets
The way Charlotte McLaughlin sees it, grit is a little like exercise: You only get stronger with practice.
That blend of resilience, tenacity and passion has been a critical ingredient in McLaughlin’s more than 40-year career in financial services. As a leader, she hopes to foster those qualities in the people who work for her. She also wants her employees to respond positively to failure and learn from their mistakes.
It may seem strange, then, to hear McLaughlin say that a personal goal is to criticize less this year. Criticism isn’t inherently bad, she says, but it’s important to know when and how to deliver it.
“Criticizing more constructively is all about how to pick a good fight versus a bad fight,” said McLaughlin, the longtime president and CEO of PNC Capital Markets. “To pick a good fight, the stakes must be worthwhile and add value. It is every leader’s responsibility to focus on the good fights and to not waste time on unproductive conflict.”
McLaughlin has had a busy year, which included the introduction of new management support functions aimed at allowing salespeople to focus more on sales.
She also launched a new two-way mentoring effort, encouraging senior leaders and junior talent to team up and learn from each other. Though the experiment is still in its early stages, the results so far are positive: The junior employees learned more about PNC Capital Markets’ many products, while more senior employees gained insight into the importance of good messaging, she said.
That may help McLaughlin achieve her broader aims of developing positive chemistry and a sense of teamwork among her employees.
“This does not mean avoiding conflict or tough issues,” she said. “Rather, it means dealing with tough issues and conflicts through a fair and constructive approach.”
